Exhibition time: 02 06 2022–30 06 2022
Meno Parkas Gallery (Rotušės a. 27, 44279 Kaunas, Lithuania)
Project Władysław Starewicz – A PIONEER OF WORLD ANIMATION is dedicated to the person and work of the author of the first in history movies of puppet film animations.
He started gymnasium in Kaunas but he was relegated and he graduated from Dorpat (today Tartu in Estonia), an important center of Polish culture and patriotic movements in the Russian Empire. In Kaunas, especially in the Municipal Museum (now the Telecommunications Museum), which had its branch Natural and Ethnographic, young Władysław watched crafted insects in museum display cases. He also watched them during trips to the forests near Kaunas, he was an avid entomologist. In the home studio, though some sources also mention a small studio in the Museum building, the first puppet animation from Starewicz was created "Fawn fight" in 1910.
A young 28-year-old photographer and illustrator, he took a job at the Museum, which also recommended him making film documentation. To cope with new tasks, but also to develop his creative activity.
Starewicz bought a film camera in Moscow and that's how his cinematographic career began. Developing his interests and film technique, young Starewicz in the following years realized a few more extensive animated films, which the viewers liked very much. In 1912, already as a 30-year-old, along with his wife, from which he collaborated on in the production of films, he moved to Moscow, where he became one of the most important film producers of the time Chanżonkow. He brought with him, created in Kaunas, the animated film "Beauty Lukanida ", which initiated his all-Russian, but also world-wide career. In seven years he has made several outstanding and distributed around the world, among others in the USA and China, puppet films.
The project includes an exhibition devoted to the artist based on collections of photographs from Lithuanian and Polish collections. The second part is a review of important ones films from the Russian period. The third elaboration and publication of Starewicz's catalogue, the first of this kind of album publications in Polish and English. The fourth cycle expanded virtual on Facebook.
Organizer: The Centre of Contemporary Art in ToruńPartners: Meno Parkas Gallery, Polish Institute in Vilnius, Lithuanian Artists' AssociationProject’s curator: Krzysztof StanisławskiLithuanian curator: Arvydas ŽalpysCoordinators:Izabella Stanisławska, Paulina KuhnLithuanian coordinator: Airida Rekštytė, Lina Mikalauskienė, Emilija ŠneiderytėFilm curators: Radosław Osiński, Piotr WaśniewskiProduction: Wojciech Ruminski
Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland within the framework of the Inspiring Culture Programme, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Polish Institute in Vilnius, Lithuanian Artists' Association.
